Reeds scrape away

[wobgon]

And?

[Hawkeye77]

I've said I think he cheated. Is that any more or less valid than someone's outside looking in opinion he didn't cheat? No.

Call it whatever, but the guy was intentionally improving his lie. Beyond that of course I can't read his mind. The video from a few years ago helped my opinion along, though.

Haha, I'm not so sure Stricker would be getting roasted in this fashion - you'd have to add in the assumption that he would act like Reed did after the fact and that's a stretch, IMO. No doubt some jackwagons would want to crucify Stricker on here but I think it would be a minority.

Kuch has always been a little bit of a lightning rod for certain folks, a different than Steve I think. Don't think he deserved even 1/4 of what he got over the caddie thing.

If you want to get picky, based on the thread title, I'm wondering when we are going to hear about his wife's scrape away. ;-)

[Red4282]

This thread has opened my eyes to other people and rules. I played competitively in high school and junior college, and generally we all expected everyone knew the rules. If someone was breaking them it was doing so with the purpose of gaining an advantage. I now realize there are a small group of “serious” golfers who do things they think are ok and totally are not. Then again, it doesn't get much simpler than “play it as it lies”.

[juliette91]

Really? What Reed did was intentionally improve his lie, it's breaking the rule, yes but it was not inadvertent or a sloppy misstep. This rule is kinda the bedrock of all golf rules: don't touch the ball till it's on the green and don't improve your lie. I'm sure the flies will be more bothersome to the US team than Reed's bad move. I like what Cam Smith said and came out with right away. Reed has a history of going over the line and I think he will eventually be suspended for this.

[MattyO1984]

The whole thing is now bugging me extensively in that it has resulted in me agreeing with Brandel Chamblee. To say that he went in on Reed is an understatement, he simply did not hold back one iota.

 

Some of the quotes that I have read -

“To defend what Patrick Reed did is defending cheating, it is defending breaking the rules”

”The thought that whatever darkness he would bring to the team would be offset by his competitive fire” (On PR being being for the Presidents Cup

”He’s put his teammates in a very difficult situation. If they do defend him, they’re tacitly defending breaking a rule. Flagrantly defending breaking a rule. It’s an untenable situation”

”This was flagrant, anybody in the world of golf who watched this, it was repugnant video to anybody in the world of golf. As far back as the game goes, at its inception, you do not improve your lie. It’s not a new rule. It’s been a long time. I don’t care what camera angle. He will have known he’s improving his li. The fact that he thinks there is no intent, I think his ego is as big as Jupiter. Ego monsters are irritated by facts but they are not moved aside from them. They think their ignorance of the facts, or their version of what happened, is greater than the truth”

 

That last one is amazing!! Way to stick it to them Brandel...I am sorry that it has come to my agreeing with you though!

[Hawkeye77]

Haha - more than bugs me when I have to give him credit for anything, which is more often than I will ever admit. ;-)

[s1mZ]

I have to echo your view.

We all love this game, and I assume that means we respect the rules. Sure, some (including myself) may have cheated in the past, or stretched the rules (favorable drop etc.) to take advantage, but I don't see how anyone can defend PR's actions here. Lets ignore intention for a bit - as it is extremely contentious. He was penalized, which means he committed a crime according to rule makers. He has to do better with his presser afterwards, and subsequent comments. Acknowledge that you responsibly accept the penalty, acknowledge that you can see how the optics don't look on TV and commit to not doing it again. But he has an ego. A BIG one. And he has to justify and defend it.

Its a shame, because dude can play.

[rich_s2]

2019 Man of the year

 

[MMB1500]

Hard to believe McIlroy is seemingly defending Reed over the heat he is receiving.

He's a blatant cheat. End of story. And his completely disingenuous response afterwards only made it worse.

It's only right that Reed is being castigated and long may it continue.

[MMB1500]

Amazing and quite clearly not just a reference to Reed either.

[vjswing]

As far as Steve Stricker goes, we can talk hypotheticals all day long, but he faced an actual situation where one could draw a reasonable analogy. This was at the final round of the 2011 John Deere Classic, and I personally witnessed it. He was going for the 3-peat, and was in control most of the way, but Kyle Stanley made a charge on the back leading to an eventual clubhouse lead. Stricker was coming off a bogey on #15, and his tee shot on the short par-3 #16 actually buried in the bunker to the point where no portion of the ball was even VISIBLE.

He consulted with a rules official, who allowed him to brush off just enough sand so he could identify the ball, and of course, then had to re-create the original lie as much as he possibly could. He could only take a desperation hack at it, just to essentially dislodge it, and then hit the next shot from the bunker to tap-in distance to salvage bogey. Stricker dropped a must-have birdie at #17, setting up an absolutely epic finish on 18. Is there any video proof of this, you may ask? Why yes...yes there is!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qHaHGIhTvs

[8602081]

I don't like Chamblee, but I have to agree with him on this..

Where is Honesty and Integrity, which is what attracted me to golf..

 

[BlackDiamondPar5]

Because Stricker has integrity and class whereas Reed is the opposite.

 

Chamblee right on the money about this guy.

[tiderider]

that's the point .... stricker would NOT have done it ...

[MattyO1984]

At least Brooks is not on the team and caught in the crossfire although, he is one person that I am looking forward to being asked about Reed. He is certainly not shy when it comes to his opinions and it would be interesting to see what he would have to say about this.

[jmck]

Bingo. Funny how it's the same guys whose names come up over and over again, while other guys never have their names come up. Really cracks me up when posters here attribute that to......bias in the peanut gallery? Rather than, you know, the actions of the people whose names keep coming up.

What if it was Stricker who spit in a hole or tore up a few greens with his putter? What if it was Stricker who massively stiffed his local caddy? What if it was Stricker who banged his way through half the porn stars and cocktail waitresses in Vegas? Strange how those topics don't come up too often here, isn't it? Must be the pro-Sticker bias, rather than Stricker simply not doing any of those things.

[KnightPS]

My take on this is probably unpopular. I agree, based on the video, that the two-stroke penalty is appropriate, I agree that his explanation/excuse was not good. I also think its being blown out of proportion. The video, in real time vs closeup slo-mo, show two different things. Its the amount of sand moving in the latter that is damning and justifies the penalty. Because of that, the execution of Reed is a bridge to far for me. I always give the player the benefit of the doubt based on the situation at hand. A player can be focused on the wrong thing and not realize the totality of their actions. I don't think Chamblee, and apparently the entirety of the golf community, can say exactly what the player was thinking, seeing and intending based on a video. Whether we like it or not, the act is not against the rules, it violates the rules only if the act improves the lie. The truth is, and I have not seen one, there is no angle that shows, without a doubt, the effect the act had on the lie (though it most likely did help ball contact).

Before you set me fully ablaze and ban me from the site please understand I agree the with the assessment of the penalty. I just think that the reaction from the media et al is based on assumptions and inferences and existing opinions of an individuals character. That makes me uncomfortable.

In conclusion, I predict Reed, in a clumsy attempt of rehabilitation of reputation, will call a penalty on himself this week causing Brandel Chamblee to pass out on Live From.

[DavePelz4]

And I doubt if he is Master of His Domain.

[LICC]

You are incorrect that there is only a violation if the act improves the lie. The rule is clear that you cannot improve any conditions affecting the stroke, including the area of the player's intended swing.

[MtlJeff]

I gave the examples earlier of Kuchar and Sung Kang. What had Kuchar done prior to stiffing his caddy? He had a pretty good rep from what I remember. He was jumped on pretty hard for the caddy thing (boycott his sponsors!!! Etc) , in the end when more of the story came out, he did seem like a bit of a jerk....however we knew none of this at the time, only the word of Tom Gillis

Sung Kang was called a cheater by many, many people here based only on the word of Joel Dahmen and a witness who was friends with Joel Dahmen. There wasn't even footage of it. I was in that thread saying things like "we don't know any of this is even true" and I was in the minority of people posting that.

I'm not defending Reed, he looks pretty bad here. But I dont think it's fair to say we only jump on people with histories like his. Its just convenient in this case for the mob.

I think too often we rush to judgement on things. Especially on the internet. And sometimes our initial thoughts are right. And sometimes they are not

[caniac6]

I think Reed cheated, but I'm not going to completely throw him under the bus. I think what will define his career, is what he does from this point forward. Between his college actions, and the weird family relationships, the comments following the Ryder Cup, he has a kind of sketchy past. Mabye the reactions to this latest thing motivates him to become a better person, but mabye, this is just who he is.

[Soloman1]

Lying and never admitting fault has become normal behavior.

[jholz]

I can't speak to the Sung Kang issue, but I see a lot of similarities between the Reed and Kuchar examples. Public responses to both incidents have been shaped by longstanding rumors/scuttlebutt.

 

Reed has a reputation as a cheater and douchebag. Kuchar has a reputation of being a cheapskate and a douchebag.

 

In both cases, the incidents served to support those reputations, and as a result, people begin to feel justified when sharpening their pitchforks.

 

The simple lesson here is: don't be a douchebag.

 

 

[LICC]

If I'm ever on the course and a rules issue comes up, and someone says that" @davep043 from WRX says ...", well, that's good enough for me ...

[gvogel]

What I actually can't fathom is that Reed actually thinks that he wasn't cheating. In his own mind, he thinks that he did nothing wrong.

The guy is living in a different air space than most of us. Which is kind of scary.

[MtlJeff]

Did he really though? I dont recall Kuch having that rep before the incident. Certainly nothing as blatant as Reed getting accused of stealing from teammates in college. I think it was more of a David Simms "hes mean to dogs and old people when the cameras are off" type thing that was all kind of like just talk. I mean people said the same stuff about guys like Phil Mickelson at one point

[c7015]

Nike is like hey Rory remember that favour we talked about ...

[juliette91]

When I listened to Chamblee's passionate save the game vilification of Reed as a cheater it really did sound genuine and was visually supported by the slow mo video accompanying his opinion. And for what it's worth, I've come full circle on Chamblee and think he is one of the best commentators on golf I've ever heard. But then there's Reed's murky history of cheating allegations against him and that gets into the mix too. The new rule is pretty clear, no practice swings in the trap to test the sand and was really intended to allow players who inadvertently touched the sand (and also to move rocks and debris from the sand to save their $200 wedges) not to be penalized. Video is inherently flawed, it's a 2 dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional world and as a former professional photographer the camera might not lie but it's no truth machine either.

 

[Titleist99]

You might be one of the few sane poster in this thread....LOL! Regardless of intent it's a two stroke penalty, some one eles we would not be talking  about it, this is way over the top.

[Birdie Mac]

Not normal, but certainly more accepted. Personal responsibility has taken a hit.